Notes from MIPIM: Getting digital with Gensler

March 10, 2015

London First chief executive Jo Valentine sends us her thoughts from MIPIM.

9 March 2015, Monday 22:08

Bumped into Ian Mulcahey of Gensler at the JLL drinks (our joint pre MIPIM event which has become a MIPIM staple – informal and good networking; Ed Lister [London’s Dep Mayor for Planning] was in good form. JLL had red squares which you walked on at the entrance which generated power for the marquis – cool).

Ian is a creative brain who thinks big about international cities. You may recall Gensler came up with the idea for a river park along the banks of the city a few years ago. And they won an award again at our London Planning Awards this year for an idea for creating cycleways in disused tunnels.

Anyway, the point is he told me that the New York Times has just moved its digital media head office to London. Alongside the Guardian and the Mail digital media centres, and Bloomberg, etc. this is beginning to make us a serious hub.

So then we got to speculating. All the media moved out of Fleet Street to follow their printing presses a while ago. But now that Goldman Sachs is about to leave the old Telegraph building in Fleet Street, isn’t it time for digital media to return to the location of their forebears?

And finally, in passing, one of our new meeting rooms is called “Fleet” after the hidden river that passes by.